Abstract:
Water-induced Electric Generators (WEGs) exhibit tremendous promise as
sustainable energy sources harvesting electricity through the
interaction between materials and water utilizing the hydrovoltaic
effect, an innovative green energy harvesting method. However, existing
WEG devices predominantly rely on inorganic materials with limited
research on naturally available, bio-based materials for hydrovoltaic
energy harvesting. This study introduces a novel nutshell-based
hydrovoltaic WEG for the first time. This low-cost, organic, and
efficient renewable energy source can generate a voltage above 600 mV
with a power density exceeding 5.96 µW·cm−2 utilizing
streaming and evaporation potential methodologies, which can be
sustained for more than a week. Notably, after further chemical
treatments and combining the physical and chemical phenomena, output
voltage and maximum current density reach a record high of 1.21 V and
347.2 µA·cm−2 respectively, which outperforms most
inorganic and organic materials based WEGs. By connecting two units in
series and parallel this eco-friendly WEG can power an LCD calculator
without the assistance of any rectifier. We believe that this novel
nutshell-based WEG provides a significant advancement in WEG technology
by offering a sustainable solution for powering electronic devices
utilizing agricultural waste.